The City Watch Files
by kalinnnnn
Summary: The papers on Sam Vimes's desk lead their own life. There are, though, some of them that enjoy his special attention.
1. Chapter 1: The mysterious thief

A/N: English native language not. Please, if you finds mistakes, correct me.

Chapter 1: The mysterious thief

The papers on Sam Vimes's desk were leading their own life.

There were conflicts, wars, love affairs and vile conspiracies going on between them. They lived, developed and died in that small, isolated world that was the desk. Reports, forms and notes just piled up as the years passed, forming hills upon hills of paper, slowly but gradually rotting into layers of some suspicious semi-organic matter, under which lay buried what some of the oldest policemen from the City Watch claimed to be plates with half-eaten food in them. Despite that, no one actually knew with certainty what was hidden in the depths of this mysterious world.

There was one tiny corner of this desk however, that was periodically updated and was cherished above all by the Commander of the Watch. It was, as he had said many times, his collection of masterpieces. When he started reading it, the door of his cabinet was locked so that no one could disturb him, but he often disturbed others with loud laughing and remarks. A new guy at the Watch would ask what was going on in the Commander's office—and then someone, often corporal Nobbs, would tell him that he was reading sergeant Fred Colon's reports.

That one particular day was gloomy and cloudy, and so was Vimes's mood. He had a new pile of reports to read, and by a strange coincidence Fred's was first.

Knowing that if it didn't cheer him up, it would at least provide him with someone he could be angry at, he took a cup of tea, took a sip of it, and started reading.

_(Unreadable blot of ink, probably a word that has been scratched and rewritten too many times)__…took corporal Nobbs with me and went to inve (scratched) to inva (scratched) to hav a look at the crime sciin. It was dark, because of the reeson that it was night, but we had a torchlite. The owner of the shop for clothes on the Curious Street that was robbed was waiting for us in front of the crime sceen, which was his shop. He too was holding a torch(scratched)lait. _

There was a note in the left margin next to it that was written in Nobby's cramped handwriting. It said _torchlight. _

Vimes stopped for a moment at that point, trying to imagine the argument that Nobbs and Colon had had over the spelling of the word. A small smile crept on his lips. Then he lowered his eyes to continue reading.

_It was souspicius, since he __had to know that we from the City Wathc woud take our own torchli (scratched) lite, but we said nothing and went insiad the shop, which was the crime scine. _

The ink was smeared on several places, probably from Colon's sweat drops. It put him under a lot of stress, to write a report.

_It was obvious __from the begining that there had been a confr(scratch) a confor (scratched) a fight. Numerous clothes were scattered all around the plaice and the shop owner said that he had found the theef breaking into the shop and steeling some of his clothes, along with his waif and littel douter. He tried to stop him by throwing clothes at him, but the theef ran away with his waif from the crime sceen, which was his shop. I asked him wat had hapend to his dauter and he answered, that the theef had dropped her wail he was runing. _

_We carefully checkd, and we found no clothes missing. _

_The shop owner insisted that he had an insurance for the shop and wanted his money. _

_Wen we asked him who was that woman with a very massiv body, standing rite next to him, he answered with a frown that this was his aunt. _

_So we left the crime sceen, searching for mor clews about the crime that had been don in the shop, which was the crime sceen. But we didn't find any, so we went to the Broken Drum and carefully inter— (scratched) int (scratched) asked the innkeeper if he had seen anything souspicius, wail drinking the mugs of beer he had been so kind to give us for a small paymant. _

_Our final conclusion is that— _

Vimes put down the report.

"Sergeant Angua!" he called.

The door opened and a blond woman entered, carrying another pile of documents.

"What are these?" asked Vimes suspiciously, narrowing his eyes.

She put them down carefully on his desk and answered, "More forms and notes. You have one from the Patrician, I think."

Vimes rolled his eyes.

"Anyway, I want you to send someone to the Curious Street and arrest the owner of the clothes shop for an attempt to lie to the insurance company. Let him and his wife, who will try to convince you that she is his aunt, spend one night in our cells."

Angua nodded.

"Anything else?"

"No, that's all."

After she closed the door behind her, Vimes looked through the window.

Yes indeed, such people were precious in certain situations.


	2. Chapter 2: HOHO

I am still not quite sure if I should publish this, but I did.  


* * *

It was already after sunset, but Vimes still wasn't leaving Pseudopolis Yard. He had a lot of paperwork to read.

He knew that Sybil was going to be mad at him for staying at work this late, and for not being home to have dinner with her (he had come back for a while though, to read to his young boy, because if he hadn't done so there wouldn't be an enough faraway corner in the whole world for him to hide from his wife's righteous wrath). He tried not to think about that right now. Criminals didn't take a rest even at night.

Vimes sighed, took the next paper, and started reading it.

Chapter 2: Ho-ho

The handwriting was cramped, and kind of harsh; some of the paper had been torn away, and there were holes in it, as if the person who had written it was more used to carving runes in the stone rather than writing with a pen on paper. There were blots of ink on several places, probably when the pen had crashed under the sheer force of the hand writing with it. There was a name and a date in the upper left corner.

_Sergent Dehgtritghous Millehnnium of the Mohlten Basahlt_

_I, sergent Dehgtritghous, ahm whriting toh inform yeeh of an attack ohn a civil man in the ghardens of the Patrician's pahlas. _

Vimes frowned. If he was a civil man indeed, what would he do in the gardens of the palace? Yes, it was true that the gardens were open to anyone, but frankly, that was the actual reason no one went there. At least no one _civil. _

_The man ihn queeeghstion was hahving a walk in the ghardens (ohr at leeest he sayhs so). He saihd that he was only hahving a waahlk in the ghardens (bhut I dooohnt theenk he is to be tghrusted) It wahs oohne ghour ago when that man was wahlkin in the Patrician's ghardens and he sayhs to be completely—_

The Commander stared at the word. It was long. It didn't have any spelling mistakes. Probably there had been a sudden gust of icy cold wind while Detritus had written that part. The handwriting became gentler to the paper as well.

_—to be completely innocent, although his facial expression told me otherwise.—Ih doohn't seeh whhy weh shouould truhst hhim sinceeh it wahs clear that hee didn't hahve the right to be thghere. _

There was a big hole in the report here. Vimes assumed that something terrible had happened to the—he paused, counting the huge blots of black ink—ah, seventh pen and to the paper that, due to the unfortunate circumstances, had been under the stony arm.

_Soh the man sayhs he wahs attackghed by a ho-ho (which is lihke a ha-ha, only the hohle in the ghround is deehper) desghbrls(scratched) des(scratched) mahde by Bloohhdy Stoohpid Jonson. He saihd that the ho-ho was waiting in a dahrk alley, joohst standing ther, getting reahdy to attackh him. When he pahssed he fell intoh the reallee laaarge hole and iht wahs an hour befohre anyon heahrd his screeming. He evehn brohke a fingehr and he wahs sayhing that he wahs going to sue the Patrikhian. _

Now Vimes's suspicion that the man hadn't been entirely sober got stronger. No one in their right minds threatened the Patrician in his _own _gardens. Perhaps in the morning the hang-over wouldn't be his most serious problem; he was probably going to worry more about finding his head on the night-stand. He had to arrest that guy, for his own protection.

_Ihh personhnaleeh think that mahn is ghuiltee of (huge splash) disghtourbing of the night sihlence—_here the handwriting changed into Carrot's stiff letters—_according to the curfew law of 1254_.

Not that everyone in Ankh-Morpork wasn't guilty of that—but they just couldn't arrest everyone, could they?

_Sighned, Sergent Dehgtritghous. _

Vimes sighed and rubbed his eyes.

"Sergeant Angua!"


	3. Chapter 3

There was a knock on the door, accompanied with a muffled "Sir?"

Vimes sighed. It was Angua, and for her own good, she would better not be coming in with a new pile of paperwork. He had gotten enough of it for at least several lifetimes.

"Enter," he said flatly, looking in despair at the mountain of documents and reports that was threatening to collapse and bury him under a ton of paper.

"Sir,"said Angua as the door closed behind her. He pushed aside some of the lower peaks to make visual contact and confirm his terrible premonition. She was swaying under the enormous weight of what suspiciously resembled notes of complaint, more reports and even more notes of complaint. The situation was getting out of control.

"Angua, if you come through that door with _more _of these just one more time, I'm going to shoot you." he said.

She put them down on the floor and wiped her forehead. "Good. Then you'll have to bring the next pile waiting downstairs by yourself, sir."

He frowned. "What are these for anyway?"

"This is from the Guild of Butchers, I believe," she said and put it down on the floor.

"_All _of it?"

"Well, yes, sir. This is the bill for the destroyed merchandise. Last week, while we were chasing Two-Headed Jimmy?"

"Oh, come on," Vimes groaned. "At least we caught him, didn't we?"

"Yes, sir, but the butchers don't believe this is a good enough excuse. They demand compensation."

"Tell them to shove it up their jumpers, will ya?"

"Indeed I will, sir," said Angua, closing the door behind her on her way out.

Vimes sighed again and rubbed his temples. Six o'clock was two hours away and he wasn't even close to reading through even half of the paper mountains, hills and valleys on his desk. He pulled out a piece of paper randomly and started reading it.

_The day was clear and we felt happy when we stepped out of the House in the brilliant morning. All around us happy citizens were attending to their daily duties—_

Damn it, again one of those. What the hell was that, anyway? It looked like a crazy author's idea of a short story, or perhaps parts of a novel, but in both cases he wouldn't dare read the entire text because he might start seeing cute fluffy animals, or even worse—small dwarves with funny little hats and mining instruments, singing happily while walking to the mine.

The door opened, this time without warning, and Angua re-entered, carrying a smaller stack of reports.

"These would be the last ones for this week, sir."

_Thank gods, _Vimes thought.

"Thank you, sergeant." For a moment his gaze fell on the strange piece of paper in his hands and he added, "By the way, would you happen to have any idea as to who sends these all the time? I get at least ten every week and I'm starting to hope the author of these would sustain a heavy arm injury, at the very least."

She took it out of his hands and examined it closely.

"That is lance-constable Forkinson's report, sir."

There was a moment of dead silence.

"You're kidding, right?"

"No, sir."

"Forkinson? That dwarf we employed last month?"

Angua frowned. "Yes, sir. Here's his name, sir. In the top right corner of the scroll." She gave him the report back and pointed at an indiscernible blot of ink.

"Oh, really? I always thought that was mosquito vomit."

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, haha, sir. He's been writing those every day since he got here. He's very diligent."

Vimes cast a guilty glance at the fireplace, where the remnants of the last thirty of those works of diligence lay, now ashes scattered over the charcoals.

"Is that so?" he said, trying to sound indifferent.

"Yes, sir. He's arrested over forty people so far for all kinds of violations of the law so far, sir, as I'm sure you've learned from the reports. He takes his job extremely seriously, as I said before."

"Yes, yes, hmm...." Vimes nodded thoughtfully, still looking sideways. "You wouldn't happen to keep copies of those somewhere?"

Angua narrowed her eyes as she glanced at the fireplace as well . In his opinion, the Look she gave him afterwards was a little too long and accusing. He hadn't known, had he?

"No, sir. Why, sir?"

"Err... Never mind. Now leave me alone,I've got plenty of work to do."

"Yes, sir."

"Alright, so I better take a look at his report, then," he murmured to himself as soon as she was gone.

_(Mosquito vomit) 23rd Grune _

_The day was clear and we felt happy when we stepped out of the House in the brilliant morning. All around us happy citizens were attending to their daily duties, such as happily walking the pet, happily doing some shopping and happily talking amongst each other. _

Two sentences, six words associated in some way with happiness. It was clear that guy had mental disorders, because no one in their right mind would call the citizens of Ankh-Morpork happy. Vimes's hand started shaking with dread at what was to come.

_With wide joyful smile we (I am referring, of course, to me and my happy and fortunate colleague Mr Rock) we went to_ _an old lady and equally happily informed her (happy to do our duties and serve the law) and told her that according to the Age Limit Law of 1345 all old women over the age of 65 were not allowed outside without a companion. She happily informed us no one had told her that before, and we, equally happily, told her that the fine was two hundred dollars. We were so happy to perform our daily duties and serve the law._

_PS. I was so happy, that I decided to write a poem. It is called, "Ode to Happiness"_

_Happy, happy, happy, happy,_

_happily we roam _

_happily we foam.._

_happily we do,_

_happily we...shoo! _

Half an hour later Vimes was still staring at the opposite wall with an expression of pure horror on his face. He hadn't moved, all of his senses were numb from what he had just read. He was sure he would be having nightmares for weeks ahead.

He _still _hadn't moved an hour later, when Angua knocked on the door and called out, "Sir? It's half past five"

That awoke him. Slowly, he put down the offending paper, as if afraid that it would explode, and quickly got up.

"Angua?"

"Yes, sir?" she said from behind the door.

"Please, do me a favour. When I'm gone, I'd like you to go into my office. You'll find Forkinson's report on the desk; pick it up, and _without _looking at it, throw it in the fireplace. _Without _looking at it, that's very important. Don't succumb to the temptation to read it! You got that?"

"Yes...sir. May I ask why...?"

"No, sergeant. Oh, and give me the address of the best psychiatrist in this city. I want it by tomorrow morning on my desk."

"Yes, sir."

He opened the door and found Angua's perplexed face staring at him.

"Are you all right, sir?"

"No, I'm not, sergeant. Goodbye."

She traced him with her eyes until he got out of sight and shook her head.

"Poor him. Too much paperwork."


End file.
